The Future Is Here
by Big Edna
Summary: Season Three, cut into small, easy to digest ficlets. All your favorite characters are back to save the downtrodden blah blah, woof woof. Finished
1. American Patriot

Max never expected it would turn out like this. The raising of the Terminal City flag had been a challenge, a stand against Ordinaries. 

Well, at least against the Ordinaries that would have them dead. The other Ordinaries--Logan, Original Cindy, Sketchy--friends were protected fiercely. Everyone in TC lined up to give blood transfusions to the Ordinaries in their midst when they realized their guests would be staying for a while.

Original Cindy was a little disturbed by the idea, but Max insisted on giving the transfusion herself. It was the least she could do after putting her best friend in harm's way like she did. Logan seemed quite OK with the whole thing, eager even, and consented readily to Joshua's donation. Sketchy passed out directly. But it was the only way to protect the humans against the intense radiation and chemical fallout that gave Terminal City its name.

But even outside the confines of TC the Ordinaries surprised Max, too. Thousands in Seattle had risen to Normal's unexpected call for justice. Encouraged by the local success, Normal had cashed in his stocks, bought a three-piece suit, and begun a cross-country campaign raising support and sympathy for the transgenics that ended with a lobby in Washington D.C. for transgenic civil rights.

When America fully recovered from its depression, Regan Ronald's name would be in the history books for single-handedly uniting the country for the first time since the Pulse.

He was Max's first visit when a law was finally passed by the Seattle city council that granted the transgenics civil rights. He had accepted her grateful hug without words. Then he told her that Original Cindy had used up all her vacation days for the rest of the next two years and she had better get her "Nubian Princess" ass back to work.

"I'm giving her Jam Pony."

"What?"

"Am I speaking Spanish?" Normal demanded testily, "I need her to run Jam Pony for me. I'm going back to Washington."

Max smirked.

"There's still too much that needs to be done in this country, and I'm the one to do it."

"Good for you, Normal," she said sincerely. "Cindy'll probably be back in the morning."

"Good. Now get out of here! We're closed!"

Good ole Normal. DC could use more of him. Still, it wouldn't be the same around here...

Max paused at the door. "Why not Sketchy?"

"That degenerate?" Normal looked physically ill.

"Right. See ya around."


	2. Questions

After Max told Original Cindy about her promotion, she left the apartment and went back to Terminal City, home sweet home. The transgenics were free, but they weren't stupid. They all knew that history repeated itself. Slavery had been abolished in the 1800s, but there were still people in this day who didn't recognize that fact. Those in TC who could get work worked, but they came back to the safety of radiation and Manticore-strength security at night. Pretty soon they would have to start charging working transgenics rent in order to pay the others who couldn't work. For some people like Mole or Joshua or Dix or Luke, jobs just weren't likely, so Max would have to create some within Terminal City: maintenance, security, construction. They would probably need to take a census sooner or later, too.

Max was secretly finding it a little fun to build her own mini-community with its own little economy.

"Logan?" she called as she opened the old wooden door of Sandeman's house.

"In here," she heard him say from the living room. She paused in the door frame a safe distance away.

"What's up?"

"I'm running Sandeman's phrase through online databases."

"You think it's some kind of code?" she asked.

"I don't know what to think," he said. "One of the founders of Manticore, also an influential member of an ancient breeding cult, made certain that you--one soldier out of thousands--had a cryptic message in an ancient language designed into your perfect DNA to show its face just now."

Max smirked. "Well when you put it that way, it's worth a shot. Anything I can do to help?" she asked as she crossed the room and leaned down over Logan's shoulder.

"Actually, yes," he said, turning his chair away from her to rummage through some papers.

Logan must have added some insulation to this room, because the heat was stifling.

"My cousin is in town to do a field study for college. Her mother is a very influential woman and is concerned for her safety."

"So by 'influential' you mean 'unpopular'."

Logan grinned at her. "It runs in the family."

Max flushed. Was Logan coming onto her? Because she was totally game. She reached out to touch his cheek as he turned back to his papers. Max caught herself and lowered her unruly hand to her side. She could have killed him with that touch! Logan was explaining more about his cousin, but Max was distracted. She was uncomfortably hot, like she was in a sauna of his aftershave...

"What?" She was vaguely aware that he had asked her something.

"Can you play bodyguard for her?" he asked again. "Something wrong?"

Max shook her head. "I'm on it." 


	3. Boss

She made it back to Terminal City without jumping anybody. She wasn't in full-blown heat yet, so she had sense enough to not come onto the drug peddlers in the back alley, though she was briefly tempted to kick their asses and take their stash for herself. But her high tolerance would've made it futile, even if the drugs would've calmed her down instead of jacked her up, which she doubted. No, what Max needed was a good lay, and soon.

As she walked through the corridor of buildings in TC, she noticed no-one was outside except for sentries.

"What's up?" she asked one of them, a green, web-toed and –fingered 'nomlie presumably made for jungle attack.

"Town meeting," was the reply. "You better hurry, boss."

"Thanks," she replied. No matter how many times she asked these mutants not to call her "boss" they insisted on doing so. It was best to just let it go, so Max found her way into the parking garage where they always held their meetings. Inside, Mole was at a podium that had been built for these purposes. Anyone could have a turn, but only the person at the podium had the floor. This helped to make their meetings efficient and brief by limiting the number of people talking out of turn. Mole was finishing a biweekly supplies list, which would be approved by a selected budget committee, and then a third designated group went out and got the supplies.

Alec, of course, was a boon to this process. Despite what had happened over the last few months, he hadn't lost a single contact. He could get anything and everything cheaper than the average shopper, so his job was to review the list and give his committee hookups. So far, he hadn't screwed up.

"Hey, Maxie!" he greeted her cheerfully as the meeting ended. The tip of his nose bent down toward his radiant smile, as it had a habit of doing. God, he was gorgeous!

Max's innocent smile faded from her lips as she realized with panic that she actually had that thought.

"Something wrong?" Alec asked, his own smile falling into his default smirk as he saw her eyes widen.

"No." She avoided his eyes and changed the subject. "I've got a job for you."

Alec recognized the dismissal and decided to use it to his advantage. "You sure you're ok? You don't look so good. Logan get his own virus?"

"I'm fine," was the instantaneous answer. Alec wasn't sure why it was so damn fun to jerk Max around like this, but it was really amusing…as long as he didn't take it too far. The glint in her eye and the way she tightened her hands into fists was warning him that he was already past "too far."

"I'm in," he told her. She smiled broadly and started to walk away.

"Don't you even want to know what it is?" she asked after him.

Alec turned around and spread his arms. "Nope." Another smile, a wicked one. "I trust you, Boss."

Max was stopped from chasing after him and beating the smirk off his baby face by someone calling for her attention. Beating Alec would have to wait. And besides: the longer she was mad at him, the less inclined she was to want to breed with him. Right? She shuddered. 


	4. A Long Night

Max didn't sleep well that night. Her whole body felt washed with adrenaline and some other chemical that made her skin hypersensitive. Every stray breeze felt like a massage across her bare arms and legs where she'd kicked her blankets off in a hot sweat. When she did get snatches of sleep they were vivid fantasies about Logan, Alec, even Ben. Alec and Ben…

Max wondered if she didn't have the male "I like twins" gene sequence and thought briefly about how absurd that gene would be if it existed. Why would that one survive thousands of years of strict Darwinian elimination and then be spliced into her unique gene structure?

Well, she thought wryly as she abandoned sleep and dressed herself, maybe the guys at Manticore just needed one more gene to replace all of her junk DNA. In this post-Pulse world, anything was possible. Max went to the Needle to wait out the early morning hours. After she was certain most people had left for work, she walked back to Terminal City and checked in with Joshua.

"Little Fella," he greeted her with a hug, careful not to get his paintbrush in her hair.

"Whatcha painting, Big Fella?" she asked as she examined a half-covered tableau behind him.

"Joshua number ninety-seven," he said with pride. "Normals." Max looked at him in surprise, so he explained eagerly. "Unexciting. Fragile. Ugly." He actually winked at that one. "Beautiful. They are all these things. Complex. Challenging to put into color."

"They sure are, Big Fella," she agreed, and he grinned, pleased with himself. "Do you mind if I stick around here?" she asked then, "Watch you paint?"

If Joshua could have blushed under his dark skin, he would have. Painting was very personal to him, and he felt momentarily self-conscious. "Sure, Little Fella," he said, all embarrassment gone. Max, after all, was like a part of himself. The upstairs part.

Max's big smile was honest and loose. Things were always simpler with Joshua. As she watched him paint she felt able to think and breathe again. She would blow off Crash tonight watching Joshua paint Normals and take the late sentry watches. That should keep her out of trouble. Logan would miss her, no doubt, but it was the only way she could think of to prevent herself from making new regrets. 


	5. Hungry Eyes

Original Cindy rolled her eyes into her beer glass as Logan turned around to scan the handful of people entering the bar, as he had every time the door had opened tonight.

"You think she'd come to congratulate her own boo for one helluva promotion," she said, pursing her lips.

"I'm sure she'll be here soon," Logan said. Original Cindy hated when he used that tone of voice; she wondered if he knew he was such a bad actor.

Light glittered off a heavily sequined shirt and caught her attention. A flirty smile came to her lips as she examined the wearer of said shirt. "I guess I'll just have to console myself with that hottie over there. Excuse me." Logan watched with fascination as Cindy slinked over to the blonde girl who had caught her eye. Max's nearest and dearest friend walked a fine line between masculinity and femininity that Logan found immensely interesting.

A strong hand clapped Logan on his back, and Alec sat down in the seat Cindy had vacated. "Where's Max?" he asked cheerfully.

"Don't know," Logan said, voice strong with annoyance. This, as much as anything, reinforced Logan's theory that Max and Alec weren't seeing each other. Knowing Max, they probably never were in the first place, and she had made that story up to push Logan away. She could be tricky like that.

"That's too bad," Alec said, though his face never lost its happy-go-lucky expression. "Ooh," he sucked in his breath; it was his version of Cindy's "come hither" pout. He was on the prowl. "Excuse me," he said distractedly, patting Logan's shoulder again as he, too, went off to woo a lady at the bar.

Logan sighed and finished his beer in one long gulp before he grabbed his coat and headed outside to call Max. He couldn't help himself. Left to her own devices she would get into even more trouble. 


	6. Crash

Alec sat down next to the girl he had seen at the bar. "Hi," he said, turning on his most innocent and charming smile. "Can I buy you a drink?" 

She smiled back, a small grateful smile. "No thank you."

"Well why'd you come to a bar if you didn't mean to drink?" he teased her. Her body language still suggested she was interested in him, and he was not one to give up so easily.

"I'm meeting someone," she said shyly. To Alec, she seemed flattered and unused to the attention he was paying her, which was inconceivable to him because he found her very attractive and approachable. Maybe even a little gullible. If he pushed hard enough, he felt certain he could talk her into anything. "I'm early," she explained further, when Alec didn't say anything.

He snapped out of his musings, and upon seeing her tentative smile, decided that she came by her naiveté honestly. It wasn't an act. He liked that. "Well, how 'bout a drink while you wait?" he asked again.

An hour later, the alcohol had loosened her tongue and her inhibitions, and she and Alec were in a full-out flirt fest.

"I thought you had to meet someone," he said, leaning his strong jaw on a fist. She jerked his hand from under his head to read his watch and swore when she saw the time.

"I've got to go," she said apologetically as she stood. "It was nice meeting you..."she shook his hand.

"Alec."

"Alec," she repeated, still holding his hand. "It was nice meeting you."

"You...already said that," he said, and she ducked her head in embarrassment.

"I have to," she motioned over her shoulder.

"...to go, yeah," he said, dropping her hand. "See ya around." It occurred to Alec as she briskly walked away that he forgot to ask her name. He turned back to the bar and tried to figure out why that mattered to him. He only knew the names of a handful of women out of the many he had seduced over the years. Or who had seduced him, he reminded himself, He wasn't an animal. No, Alec wanted to know her name because she was nice, genuinely nice, and that wasn't so common these days. It didn't mean he was falling for her. He had given up Ordinaries anyway. A ringing sound pulled his attention away from self-reflection and he answered his phone monosyllabically: "Yeah."

"Alec, it's Max."

Max's behavior was getting weirder by the hour, and Alec grinned to himself, gearing up for some light-hearted banter. "Maxie! You missed Logan tonight. Poor guy looks absolutely dejected without you."

"Shut up," she snapped. "I have a favor to ask."

"Oh now Maxie, you know that'll cost you something."

"Can you not be an ass for two days?" It was obviously a rhetorical question, so Alec didn't say anything. When Max didn't continue yelling at him, Alec decided maybe it wasn't so rhetorical.

"Two days?" he asked.

"Give or take."

"What's the deal?"

"Logan's cousin is in town and needs protection."

"What'd he do?" Alec asked, annoyed at the prospect of playing bodyguard to an Ordinary just because Max and Logan had relationship issues.

"She. And she didn't do anything. Logan's family are just those kinds of people."

"Whatever. Is she hot?"

"Alec," Max's tone was pleading. "Please don't." Alec sighed. "Besides, Logan said she was fat. Not your type."

"None of them are," Alec mumbled.

"What?"

"Never mind. I'll do it. Later." Alec flipped the phone shut and looked around for Logan. Spying him in a corner booth, he went over, stopping abruptly when he recognized the girl from the bar sitting across from Logan. Her jaw was dropped in guilty surprise as she saw Alec approaching.

"Alec?" Logan's question was almost a greeting.

"Hey, Logan," Alec said brightly. "I was just coming over to talk to you about your cousin, but since you're busy, I'll come back later." He turned and stalked away, pissed that Logan would move on his girl. Ok, granted that things between Alec and Logan had been strained pretty much since they met, what with Alec trying to kill him and all and Max claiming that she and Alec were lovers, but that didn't excuse...

"Alec," Logan called after him. Alec paused, thinking the situation through. "This is my--"

"Your cousin!" Alec exclaimed with a wide smile as he turned around.

"Eve," Logan said.

"We've met," Alec and Eve said at the same time. Logan looked from one to the other, thoughtful and wary.

"Forgive me if I didn't recognize the family resemblance. Anyway, Max said your cousin was fat," Alec continued, looking back to Logan.

Eve blushed. "I had a few extra pounds as a kid," she said, the hurt evident in her voice. Alec winced, an almost imperceptible tightening of his eyelids that Logan thought he imagined seeing on Alec's face. Did she have to be so damn sincere all the damn time? What was wrong with him?

Alec turned his head to face her and smiled faintly. "And look at you now." It didn't even begin to make things right, but it was the best he could do. He didn't apologize because he didn't regret. He didn't regret because you could never take things back anyway. He pulled up a chair while Logan briefed him. Eve needed protection to and from her classes. She understood her danger and wouldn't go out otherwise. Besides, Logan would come see her, too, when he could.

"Max said she'd be able to take over the job in a couple days," Logan finished.

"Fine," Alec said. "I'll be at the bar. Let me know when you're ready to leave."

"What about surveillance?" Logan asked, barely masking anger toward Alec's attitude.

"Logan," Alec said, returning his chair to its original table, "It's me. I'm always watching the door."


	7. Plots Within Plots

"What does that mean?" Eve asked Logan. 

"What does what mean?"

"'It's me. I'm always watching the door'?"

Logan thought quickly; Max didn't want Eve to know who she and Alec were. _What_ they were, as Max put it. Logan didn't agree with her reasoning, but he had no write to expose her. Even if that meant lying to his favorite cousin.

"It's what he was trained to do," Logan said. It wasn't quite a lie. It was a lie by omission, but to an X-5 that was just how the world worked. "He just never got out of the habit."

"He's a wanted man?"

Logan smiled sardonically. "By the women, definitely."

Eve's smile broadened and her eyes narrowed as she sized her cousin up. "You've changed," she said. "You never would have kept this from me when we were younger." Logan shrugged in admission. He should have known that Eve would pick up on his circumlocution. "I'll just have to find out myself," she said, breaking eye contact.

"Be careful around him," Logan said abruptly. "He likes women, but he doesn't love them."

"Is that why you told him I was fat?" she teased.

"Hey, you've changed, too, since I saw you last!"

They both laughed at that, and Eve fell silent, idly stirring her cola with her straw. "I suppose it doesn't matter anyway. Mama wants to get me married off," she said darkly.

Logan tried to look surprised, but found he couldn't. His aunt always had money problems and relied on wealthy men to sustain herself and Eve. Now that Eve was old enough...Logan had expected this sooner or later. "To whom?"

"Freddy Pratt." She had named one of the wealthier, older bachelors who still had an empire after the Pulse.

"Freddy Pratt? Isn't he from Seattle?"

"Exactly," Eve replied. "Plots within plots," she said with dramatic flourish.


	8. Destinies In Motion

Ames White felt out of control. He felt _mere_. Merely human. Merely mortal. Merely himself. He didn't believe in luck, and he knew that the transgenics probably didn't either. It wasn't in their natures to be prone to fits of semantics. But White couldn't explain his current situation without thinking that 452 got lucky. 

Everyone wanted the transgenics contained: the general public who feared them, the government who had created them, and the Conclave who loathed them. Yet somehow 452 had escaped White's grasp AND disgraced him AND won public support and protection under the law. The Familiars were running out of time, and their plan relied on 452 and her misfit brethren to be contained or eradicated. The future of the whole world depended on this point.

It was time for some more misdirection. It was how the breeding cult had survived all these years and generations and eras: giving anyone too curious about their affairs something obvious to watch while the real plan unfolded behind them. White was especially good at this skill. He opened his cell phone and hit a button to dial a preprogrammed number. There was a pause after the flurry of tones, and a few clicks as his call was automatically redirected. Finally a voice answered after the second ring. "Fe'nos tol."

"Fe'nos tol," White replied. "It's time to release the prisoner," he said.

"You're losing favor with the elders, Ames," the voice warned.

"We don't have a choice," he said through clenched teeth. "The Hour is coming upon us, and we need the transgenic threat contained before then. The interloper is the only card we have left to play."

"Not the only card, Ames. But the Conclave agrees with you about the interloper. They'll be in touch when they decide how best to use him. And you."

"Fe'nos tol," White said. He knew a dismissal when he heard one. The ancient phrase was repeated, and he heard a click as he was disconnected. He grimaced to himself. When the Hour arrived he wanted to be in good standing with the Conclave. He could afford no more mistakes. His family had already suffered enough disgrace.


	9. ESP

"Hey." Eve's voice was subdued as she approached Alec at the bar. He didn't say anything as he turned to face her, and she looked down at her shoes in embarrassment. "I'm ready to go," she said, and her voice completely lacked confidence. Alec marveled at the complete change in her. At the beginning of the night, Alec had actually considered going back on his "stay with your own kind" resolution and sleeping with this spitfire. Now that he'd hurt her, she was like a whipped dog: hurt and unable to trust him again. He briefly wondered what she was like in bed. Either she was an animal or she was just as sweet as she was any other time. Vanilla. But it didn't matter. He'd blown it. 

Eve turned red. "I mean, if you're not ready then..."

Alec laughed, a guttural expulsion of air, and drank the last of his shot with a jerk of his head. "It's fine," he assured her. Eve turned redder and refused to look at him, so Alec cocked his head to bring his face to her level. She had to look at him, then, with her over-expressive eyes. "It's cool," he said again. "Where's your coat?"

"I didn't bring one," she said.

Outside, the air was brisk, and Eve walked quickly to stay warm. Alec kept pace easily enough and looked sidelong at his charge. Her footsteps seemed to take on an angry pace, as if she could feel him analyze her. He laughed again.

"What?" Eve stopped and glared at Alec. She was transitioning from the hurt stage to the angry stage.

"Has anyone ever told you you're...unique?"

"Has anyone ever told you you're a jerk?" she retorted.

"Yes."

Eve began walking again, less angrily and more slowly. "No."

"No what?"

"No, no-one's ever told me I'm unique. Mostly they say 'eccentric.'"

"Hmm."

"For the record, I think 'unique' is clichéd."

"It usually is, coming from me. I just didn't have a better word than that." It was eerie how accurate Eve was. Being able to read people must be the pay off for being so readable.

They walked the rest of the way to her apartment in silence. Alec checked the room and looked out the window to see if anyone was watching. "Everything looks fine," he said. "Page me if anything seems wrong." He could sense her hesitation and unwillingness to trust him. "Anything," he stressed again. "It's important." She met his gaze and seemed to relent.

"I'll page."

"Promise?"

"I promise I'll page," she said obediently, smiling slightly.

Outside Alec found himself looking up at Eve's window, still smiling without realizing it.


	10. Sex and Coffee

The thing that set Terminal City apart from the rest of Seattle—besides the gene sequences of its inhabitants—was the hours the transgenics kept. Max wasn't alone in her inability to sleep. At any given time between midnight and 7am a third of Terminal City was awake and active. Max had tried everything to make herself sleep longer than two hours. She had even resorted to praying, but in the end, her genetic constitution won out and made her restless and claustrophobic. She felt like she couldn't impose on Joshua anymore; she'd spent the entire day holed up in the Big Fella's room. In her state there was only one other person she could turn to. 

Max peeked out of her door and checked to see that the hallway was clear. If she could just focus on her training...and if there weren't any X-series males over 17 in the hallway...she might make it.

Back to the wall, she skulked down the corridor, breathing shallowly and listening intently. A sudden rush of blood caused by the very tantalizing smell of cologne caused her ears to roar and she picked up speed, opting for speed instead of stealth.

"Max!" Alec greeted her, and she shoved passed him brusquely, blurring out of sight before he could react.

She blurred all the way to her old apartment. Her body was screaming for her to stop, partially because even X-5s weren't trained to run that fast for that long, partially because it had been screaming—pleading even—for her to stop since she ran into Alec. Her body wanted him and had seized on his scent, which stuck in her nostrils and triggered various x-rated fantasies.

When Original Cindy opened the door, Max all but collapsed on her friend.

"Damn, boo, what the hell's up?" she asked as she helped Max to a chair.

Max panted. "I'm in heat."

"Oh." OC's lips were pursed as she tried to work things out in her head. "Ain't nothing make it go away?"

Max shook her head. "Nothing besides sex. Or time."

"Self-service?"

"Tried that. Then I went out and made it with all four members of a garage band. In their garage. While their mom cooked dinner."

"Why don't you just find yourself someone, boo?" Cindy suggested. "You overlook the benefits of one night stands." She moved to get her friend coffee.

Max shook her head and accepted the steaming mug.

"Why not?"

Max looked at the coffee. "You know why."

OC pulled another chair and put an arm around her friend. "You're stuck between a rock and a hard place, sugar." She paused. "I've seen you during this, 'member? If you don't get it out of your system, you're going to kill him."

A tear slid down Max's cheek. "I know, but I feel so guilty. I hate this."

OC hugged her a little tighter. "I know, boo. But if anybody understands it, it's you transgenics. Maybe one of them?" Max sighed heavily. "Maybe Alec?"

"Alec?" Max sat straight up. "Alec!"

"Yeah...there's a kind of cosmic irony about it, with your being breeding partners and then telling Logan you were together..."

Max moaned and put her head in her hands. "The sad thing is, it make sense." Another sigh. "But only if I'm really desperate. Really, really, really desperate."


	11. Choices

Asha swallowed her mouthful of cheap beer and waited for the stinging aftertaste. The bitterness brought her back to the present. Logan, iher/i Logan, was Eyes Only. 

Well, maybe he wasn't entirely iher/i Logan.

But that didn't excuse the fact that all those times he had said, "I'll talk to Eyes Only about it," or, "Eyes Only needs a favor," he was lying. To her. She, who would have done anything for him if he had let her.

But now...

Asha needed another drink before she could finish her thought. She put the bottle to her lips, opened her throat, and guzzled the rest of the sick liquid.

But now Asha had a choice to make. Who was she going to betray? Her courageous friend Logan who had taught her about righteousness and justice? It didn't sit right with her. He was a good man, idealistic, who had a knack for pissing off the people in power. Maybe she could convince him to let Eyes Only go, for his sake. Then she wouldn't have to make a choice between the man she loved...

Her phone rang and she answered it without thinking.

"Fe'nos tol," she replied dully to the greeting on the other end of the line.

...and the clan she had sworn a blood allegiance to.


	12. Rise and Shine

Alec was always disoriented when he woke up. He would open his eyes and wonder where the white walls of Manticore had gone and why he couldn't smell the acrid antiseptics. He would wonder why his body didn't hurt from hours of training. As the buzzing that had roused him continued, Alec fit the pieces together. Slowly at first, then faster as he woke up more.

He was in Terminal City, fighting the good fight.

He was in bed alone. Thank God for that. He hated those awkward morning-afters and preferred it when the ladies left after the main event.

That incessant ringing noise was his pager. Who would be calling at this hour?

Alec slumped back down on his mattress and thrust a hand to the vicinity of what served as a nightstand for him. After some blind groping, he found it and managed to check the number. He didn't recognize it...

He let his body relax and gave himself up to a light doze. Nobody had the right to page him this early. He didn't have to work for two hours yet...

Eve.

Alec sat straight up, fully alert, and checked his beeper again. It was probably her number. He shoved legs into his jeans and stood up, snatching his cell phone and a shirt. He dialed the number as he gathered his wallet and ID badge.

"Logan?" the voice on the other end asked.

"Eve?"

"Alec?" Eve sounded surprised and confused.

"What's up?" he asked.

"What's up is I'm going to be late for my meeting 'cause you didn't show!"

There was nothing accusing in her tone, which Alec appreciated, though she did sound upset. Didn't this girl have any faults? Couldn't she get mad and blame him just like everyone else?

"You'll be on time. I promise," he told her before he ended the call. He jogged down the halls, headed to the place he parked his motorcycle. He was almost there when Dix intercepted him.

"Alec? I need you to get something."

"Can it wait? I'm in a hurry."

"It's an organic chemistry book. Well, and a genetics book. I guess that's two things."

"Look." Alec raised his hand to cut off the rambling transgenic. "I'll see what I can find in the library or something after work."

"No, it needs to be new. Cutting edge."

"Where am I going to find that? Listen, I got another job to do besides being your gofer."

"I know. That's why I caught you now."

"Dix..." The transgenic was beginning to try Alec's already thin patience.

"I thought since you had to drop Logan's cousin off at college you could sneak a book or two?"

Alec sighed. Of course! What better place to get a cutting edge science book than a college campus? "I'll see what I can do, Dix."


	13. Eyes Only

"Max?" Logan answered his phone. 

"Hey." There was a pause. "It's Asha."

"Asha, hi." Logan tried not to sound disappointed. Another pause, a long one this time, and Logan was back on his guard. "Asha? What's up? You ok?"

"Logan, I need to talk to Eyes Only."

"I haven't been contacted by him since his last airing. I think something happened."

"But you're still working for him?"

"Fighting the good fight as best I can until he comes back."

"But you think he is coming back?" Her question sounded more like a conviction.

"I hope so, yeah. Asha, are you in trouble?"

"I can't talk about this over the phone. Can you meet me somewhere?"

Logan thought fast. Something wasn't right. "The old S1W headquarters. Give me an hour."

"Thanks."


	14. Chemistry 101

Alec answered his cell phone with his usual "yeah." Anyone who dialed his number knew exactly who they were calling, and if they didn't, then he didn't want to talk to them. There was no need to identify himself. 

"Alec." Alec fought hard not to roll his eyes. "Is Max there?" He mouthed the words as Logan said them. It was the only reason Logan would call him, after all.

"That's a negative," he replied as he drifted away from the small group he had been following through the science building. He had tricked Eve into a conversation and walked her to her meeting. At some point, his trick had backfired, sucking him into a small orientation group consisting of Eve's professors and fellow students. It would have been rude to cut and run, especially since Eve seemed to appreciate his presence. Ever shy, she stayed quite near him during the tour, desperate for a familiar face to give her confidence.

Now Logan's phone call gave Alec the opportunity to slip away and find that book for Dix. Alec very much doubted Eve would condone his stealing university property in her presence. Well, she wouldn't condone it in her absence, either, but what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

"I've been trying to get a hold of her all morning," Logan went on.

"Who?" Alec asked as he gave a sharp yank on a door knob to break the locking mechanism. It slid smoothly open, and he slipped inside with one last look into the hallway.

"Max. Look, never mind. Asha's in trouble."

"Asha's still around?" Alec was amused. He entered an adjoining laboratory and began scanning for text books.

"She wants to meet me, but I've got a bad feeling about it. I'd appreciate some back up."

Bingo. A 2018 edition of "Advanced Organic Chemistry Applications."

"Alec?"

"What?"

"Wait, why are you whispering?"

"Because I'm trying not to draw the attention of the custodial staff," Alec peeked out into the hallway. All clear.

Logan sighed. "You think you could stop stealing things long enough to back me up at this rendezvous?"

"I'm not stealing, I'm borrowing," he explained in a low voice as he plodded down a stair case. Geesh. Even when he was doing favors for people he was somehow the bad guy. "And yes, I'll be there. SuperAlec to the rescue yet _again_."

Logan gave him the address and the time, and Alec drove off toward Terminal City.


	15. Iron Resolve

Max was proud of herself. It was now 11:23 am, and she hadn't yet left Original Cindy's. She had taken at least 5 cold showers, but her resolve was strong. Maybe she could beat it this time. 

Steeling herself against racy thoughts, Max made her way back to Terminal City. She was getting too bored while Cindy was at work, and she needed to check in with the troops. Once she was done with that, she would put herself in solitary confinement. She only had to make it through the rest of today and tomorrow without doing someone stupid.

She took the sewers just in case.

Once inside the compound, she decided everything looked alright and that the troops could maintain without her. She headed for her room. No need to bother anyone with pointless queries about whether or not they were doing their jobs. Especially not the X-series.

"Max!"

Oh no. Alec. With that one word, uttered in a rich tenor, she felt herself grow hot as her entire body was flooded with blood that boiled just under the surface of her skin.

"Max, where have you been? Logan's been looking for you all morning." Alec couldn't believe he said that. It wasn't any of his business, even if it would make Logan stop pestering him to say it.

"Tell him I'm sick." She brushed past Alec and immediately longed for more contact.

"I'm not telling him anything. This is your screwed up relationship, not mine!" Alec actually seemed upset in his self-centeredness. And that just made her angry.

Anger helped. It helped a lot. How dare he act like Max and Logan's complicated relationship affected him more than it did her and Logan? Good ole anger. "Alec, I don't feel good. Leave me the hell alone!" She stomped all the way to her room, locked the door, then collapsed under her cold shower.

Even anger wasn't enough right now.


	16. Ghost

Name. What was his name again? The man, prematurely aged by almost a year of torture and asceticism, stumbled in the coldness down a mostly empty street. It seemed vaguely familiar to him, as if he should know the giant metal spire that rose above the skyline or the wharfs that dotted the water to his left. His mind felt blanketed, buried. Still, people should be able to remember their own names, even if they _had_ been through hell. He had survived Iraq, after all, with his mind still in tact. 

Iraq. He had been an officer. What the men called him?

_Yes sir, Colonel.  
No-one knew more than the Deck.  
Colonel Donald Lydecker, US Army._

Lydecker looked around himself again, this time registering what he was seeing. The spire was the Space Needle. At one time it had been beautiful and awe inspiring. Now it was covered in graffiti. The water was the ocean. It had always been that dirty. He was back in Seattle again. He knew someone who lived here. A young woman. A woman with his wife's eyes and a nasty return kick. A soldier. His kid.

Max.

Why did his wife let him call their daughter 'Max' all these years? It had to be a nickname for Maxine. Lydecker smiled. His wife probably hated that her only daughter went by 'Max'.

Lydecker stopped his aimless walking and racked his brain. His memories of Seattle were less than pleasant. He couldn't remember where his daughter's apartment was. He gripped the bars of the fence in front of him and rested his aching head against the wind-cooled metal.

Too late he heard the noise of someone approaching behind him.

There was a familiar face—one of his kids, whose name he could not remember—before a sharp pain punctuated the aching fog in his brain and everything went dark.


	17. It's in the S

"Logan." Sketchy surveyed the scene around him coolly. He was at a pay phone. He hadn't managed to score a new cell since Max took his that day in the sewer when he was chasing the dog-man for a scoop for New World Weekly. 

"Hey, Sketchy, whatcha got?"

"I overheard another reporter here talk about covering some crack snake cult story."

"And?"

"The guy claims to have a manuscript with text that somewhat resembles that quote you gave me and some other really crazy stuff. Or at least that's what he says; he probably can't even read it. Anyone who believes this cult is real has to be whack."

"Can you get it?"

"Not a chance. This guy's a real jerk and won't even let me see the cover. So wait a minute: you think this cult is the real deal?"

"Fraid so." Sketchy had proven to be a useful ally to the transgenics, rallying readers to their cause with his journalism, but Logan still didn't trust him with their dark secrets. He was as likely as Alec to screw up as much as he helped.

"I knew it!" Sketchy breathed, though he had just scoffed at the idea a moment earlier. He felt a thrill run through him. These stories were real, and he was right in the middle of them!

"Sketch, we _have_ to see that manuscript."

"I'm not stealing it, man."

"You don't have to. Just tell me where it is, and one of Max's will grab it."

"It'll come back to me, man. I just asked to see it today, and suddenly it disappears?"

"This is important. We'll figure something out so you'll be protected."

Sketchy thought about it, but only for a moment. Max had bailed him out of trouble many times of the years he'd known her. She stuck by him despite his lame pickup lines and ability to attract trouble. It was only right to help her out for once. Plus, imagine the scoop he'd have! Sketchy quickly gave Logan a name and office number. His friends were so cool.


	18. Many Meetings

_Author's note: I've started chunking sections together per many people's request. Thank you for your feedback!_

* * *

Hey there, Big Fella," Logan greeted Joshua warmly as the towering dog-man opened the door to his room.

"Hey back." Joshua seemed amused. "New friend?"

Logan looked back to the girl standing behind him placidly with a black hood over her head. "Sorta. Listen, do you know where Max is? No-one's seen her all day and I have something important to tell her." Logan had been pulling his companion through Terminal City searching for Max for the last half hour without luck.

Joshua pushed the door open wider, revealing Max. She had been standing close by, listening to the exchange. She looked both guilty and embarrassed to be caught. Joshua was evidently not supposed to reveal her presence.

"Hey, stranger," Logan smiled crookedly, and his belly did gymnastics at the mere sight of her so close and emotionally unguarded.

"Hey." Her reply was so soft he almost didn't hear it.

"We've got a bit of a situation here," he went on, confused and perplexed by Max's mixed signals. "I need a blood transfusion for her," he said, shoving Asha forward and unveiling her face. "She'll be staying a while, I think."

Asha recoiled upon seeing Joshua, burying her face in Logan's chest. Logan glanced at Max, only to find that her face was an unreadable mix of emotions. Envy, maybe, and anger.

"Why?" Max was all business now. She didn't appreciate Logan being here at this particular time, and she sure as hell didn't appreciate him bringing Asha, or the way Asha was clinging to him.

Logan recognized Max's flat, military tone, and urged Asha to tell her everything she had told him at their meeting earlier with a gentle push. "Max, I don't know how to tell you this, but I'm a member of the Conclave."

Even Logan, who had seen X-5s fight many times, couldn't quite believe that Max's fist moved that fast, but he managed to catch Asha before she fell too far. His blonde friend was passed out cold, and probably would be for a while. Joshua growled, canines bared.

"Does she work with _him_?" Joshua asked.

"Take her to get blood. We'll talk when she's awake."

"Max, I only just found out," Logan replied to her simmering brown eyes.

Max's reply was interrupted by Mole running into the room. "We've got a situation, boss."

"Not now," she snapped. There were too many "situations" right now.

"Yes now," Mole matched her annoyed tone. "We found Lydecker."

"Lydecker's alive? Here?" Logan asked. He had thought for sure the man was dead, killed by the Conclave to cover up their existence. Two people associated with Ames White and his Familiars turn up in Terminal City in one day? Logan was starting to feel uneasy. One look at Max told him that she was, too. And she had no idea how to handle either captive.

"Josh, take Asha to the med bay. I'll deal with her when she wakes up. Mole, take me to him."

Joshua looked less than happy to obey, and who could blame him? Ames White had successfully taken away the one shred of proof he had that he could someday live with upstairs people when he killed Annie. The Conclave was trying to kill him and his friends. And now his best friend wanted him to help one of them?

"Come on, Big Fella. Give me a hand." Logan tried to smooth the situation over by appealing to Joshua's normal helping nature. Joshua still seemed grumpy, but at least Max's orders were being followed, which ought to help dislodge whatever genetically enhanced bug she had stuck up her ass. Logan understood that she was under a lot of stress, but she seemed to be "off" somehow. More emotional than normal, especially now when she should be in super-soldier mode. If she wasn't careful, she would get herself killed. It only took one mistake these days.

Logan Cale would never understand women.

* * *

Max had hit a lot of people today, yet beating the stuffing out of Lydecker had given her no satisfaction. The anger that she had been relying on to get her through the next day was consuming itself. There were too many conflicting feelings floating around in her mind, and they were drowning her common sense quickly. When she told Logan to go home, her last shred of common sense left with him, and she all she had was a tangle of emotions and the inability to consider her next move.

Either Asha or Lydecker were lying, and she really didn't trust either of them.

Max was getting a headache from trying so hard to focus on the matters at hand. Her body was electrified, charged, and brimming with energy. She felt like running or fighting until she collapsed. Despite her vigor, she was mentally exhausted from warring with biological urges. Her brain was crashing.

She knocked on Alec's door, and he answered, wearing only his well-worn blue jeans. As her eyes drank in the twin shadows made by the joining of his hip bones and Manticore-issued abs, she knew she would not leave the room. Could not leave the room.

Alec made a face. "Max?" he asked, annoyed that she hadn't said anything yet, and if anything, seemed to be checking him out. She brushed by him, letting herself into the room, and shut the door by leaning back on it.

"I'm in heat." Her voice was low and smooth. Alec recognized the sounds of arousal.

"Uh-uh," Alec backed away from her, and she followed him, stalking him like he was her prey. "Bad idea, Maxie."

"Shut up." She pounced on him then, containing him long enough to kiss him ferverently. Alec desperately wished it didn't feel so good, wished he didn't miss sex so much. Feeling the last of his resolve start to slip away, he hit her, hard, a right hook across her face.

She looked hurt, emotionally wounded, not physically. If anything, the pain just increased her desire. She dabbed at the corner of her mouth, and the next time she pounced, Alec tasted her blood, and found he liked the metallic sweetness. His hands seemed to tear off her shirt by themselves, not waiting for him to make up his mind, though in retrospect he was fairly sure his brain would have been four-square against the idea...if it had been working.

Her hands responded by reaching for his pants.

Alec hoisted her up so that she sat on his hips, legs wrapped around his waist. He could feel her heat burning into his belly button, and his own heat responding, as he walked her to his mattress. He liked the feel of her this close and powerful, so he gave in to her rhythm, her madness. Even as they lost themselves in each other, in the release of sex, both wished they were sharing the moment with someone else.


	19. The Plan

Ames White hated "down time." That was why he had taken such an important position in the NSA. He liked having purpose and drive. But now, so close to the Hour, he was forced to wait. And that caused him to think. 

Every member of the Conclave had a duel existence: one as a Familiar, one as a member of society. Not that the Familiars thought too highly of society. Ames certainly never much cared for his neighbors, but he did admire some of his co-workers and friends of his late wife. They could be quite funny and clever at dinner parties.

Ames White hated "down time" because it always came back to this point: he missed his wife and son. He blamed 452, of course. She probably figured him for a sociopath, one with no regard for human life, but the truth was that White was very loyal to his family. Besides, the base word of "sociopath" was "socio." And as far as he was concerned, there were two "socios": the meek, doomed one and the superior one that would inherit the earth once the meek were dead and gone. Black...and White.

* * *

Logan hadn't stopped working since he left Terminal City. Lydecker's testimony and Asha's confession didn't line up. One or both of them were lying. Or were they? It could be that they only knew what they had been told, and they had been told different stories. Logan suspected that Lydecker's presence could be a ploy of the Conclave, but he knew that Asha's defection was an uncalculated move. Everything would be clearer if he could just get his hands on that manuscript Sketchy had found. He told Mole as much, and the grizzled lizard-man agreed readily to help Logan nab the manuscript. 

"You're a quick learn, for a human," Mole shrugged.

"Well thanks, I think," Logan managed a tight smile, unsure whether he should take Mole's comment as praise or criticism.

"Let's not get mushy." Mole reached over a desk on their way out and pulled his favorite shotgun from under it. Gripping the pump, he gave his forearm a jerk, cocking the gun, and nonchalantly leaned the barrel over his shoulder.

If there was one thing Logan Cale couldn't do, it was carry a gun like he was born to do it. All the transgenics had a grace about them when they handled weapons that Logan couldn't stop himself from admiring. He drove them both to the New World Weekly headquarters. At Mole's behest, Logan slowly drove around the block again, then parked in an alley a few blocks away. Under the cover of the darkness and shadows caused by the taller buildings, they made their way to the back door of New World Weekly. Mole grinned, small teeth stark against the green-blackness of his face as he jumped onto the dumpster and catapulted himself onto the roof. Logan grinned back as he landed right next to the transgenic, thankful he had worn his super-powered exoskeleton tonight.

"Show off." Mole quickly moved across the roof to an access door. He tried the knob, to find it locked. He was about to shoot the lock when Logan stopped him.

"Let me try," he asked as he knelt down in front of the door. It was a simple enough lock; even a novice could pick it, as he did. Once inside, Mole led them first to the security console, where they turned off the cameras, then to the lobby. He rifled through two drawers of the receptionist's desk before he found the master key. From there it was child's play to get into the right office and steal the musty leather-bound book Logan was after.

"Take it to the car," Mole instructed. "I'm going to cover our asses."

Mole was only a few minutes behind Logan, and they were nearly back to Terminal City before Logan's curiosity made him ask what Mole had done.

"I cut the power. It will look enough like a mouse did it, I think. That way no-one'll think twice about the cameras being down."

"But once they realize the manuscript is gone?"

Mole scoffed. "That place prints trash. Who's going to believe it was worth anything?"

* * *

Alec had never been with another of his kind before, much less an X-5 in heat. It was feral, sadistic. At some point, he realized that Max was raking his skin with her fingernails, but the pain only made him want climax more. It felt good to be able to hurt her back, knowing that she'd be none worse for the wear tomorrow. Almost at the edge now, he gripped her biceps. He knew that the force would break most people's arms, and he felt her tense in reaction to the pain. With an evil smile, he thrust again. This time her body tensed in a completely different way, relaxing even as her muscles all contracted at once. 

Ten minutes later, Max had found her underwear and bra. Now she was searching Alec's messy room for the rest of her clothes, tossing his own boxers and jeans at him.

"Are you going to tell Logan we made love?" he asked suddenly, teasing. He knew the fact that he still lay naked and comfortable on his bed annoyed her. "Cause I kinda think he has a right to know."

"'Made love'?" Max practically vomited Alec's words back at him. "Don't flatter yourself."

"What would you call it then?"

"Scratching an itch," She replied evenly as she buttoned her jeans. Finding her shirt at last, she headed for the door. Reconsidering, she paused. "And no, Logan doesn't need to know about this. Let's just pretend it didn't even happen. Never mention it again. Ever." With that, she slipped out of the door, feeling much more focused now than she had all week.

Alec just felt empty. He began dressing himself. He was so sick of being used; he was sick of Terminal City and everyone in it with their messed up lives. He just wanted the world to go away, like it had in those carnal moments with Max. He wanted to go back to the time when he was a piano teacher, and Rachel was the only woman he'd ever love.

A pounding at the door shook him from his self-pity. He quickly pulled on a shirt and answered it.

"Jesus, Joshua!" he recoiled from his tall friend's punch, checking to see if his nose was broken and blinking back tears from his watering eyes. "What the hell was that for?" He looked up in time to avoid another blow.

"Max and Logan. That was the plan," Joshua bellowed. "Not Max and Alec!" He growled, then, and swung a huge fist at Alec.

"Plan? What plan?" Alec asked angrily as he sidestepped another bruising swing. Joshua was backing him into a corner. "There's no cure and there's no hope!"

"Dix is taking the virus bitch down." Joshua was still advancing, so Alec boxer-danced his way around the behemoth, buying him space to maneuver. Suddenly, what Joshua said made sense.

Alec stopped. "You mean Dix is trying to find a cure for Logan?" The pieces were falling into place now: the equipment, the organic text books, the meetings in Terminal City's old chemistry labs. Alec was rewarded with another strike, this time right above his left ear.

"You think this was _my_ plan?" Alec demanded, shaking his head to clear the ringing. "I thought we were friends, Josh." Quickly, Alec grabbed his jacket and left.

"Where are you going?" Joshua lunged again, still intent on fighting.

"Ask your little fella," Alec said, avoiding Josh's advance. "She's the one with all the 'plans.'" With that, Alec was gone, leaving Joshua with his rage.


	20. Breaking Down

"Alright, Lydecker, I want your story again. From the top." Max sat across from her bruised captive. 

"I already told you everything. I found out that Sandeman was part of an ancient brotherhood. The brotherhood found out that I found out. Then they _took_ me out. No amount of torture is going to change that."

"Come on, Deck," Max scoffed. "You trained us better than that. What did you learn about them in the span of a year as their prisoner?"

"That Sandeman probably started Manticore to make an army of ibeautiful/i superhumans as opposed to the ugly ones they breed in the brotherhood."

Max drew her arm back to hit him, then stopped when he flinched.

You have a choice," she told him. "You're sitting in the middle of Terminal City. You can waste away and die protecting the people who kidnapped you for a year, the people who fired you from Manticore, or you can tell me everything you know and receive immunity from the radiation and countless toxins in the air."

"I don't know what else to tell you," he sighed finally.

"I don't have a problem watching you die," Max said, leaning forward. "You taught us that sacrifices had to be made in war. Lose one soldier to save two more in his place. Sound familiar? Well, Deck old buddy," she smiled broadly and clapped in on the back a little harder than necessary, "Better you than me and mine for once."

Her smile faded as soon as she closed the door on Lydecker. In truth, she would hate to see him die. But she would live with that if it meant that she would get the information she wanted. It was time to step up and be the boss everyone in TC expected her to be.

One more prisoner to go.

"Max." Asha probably would have ground her teeth if her jaw hadn't been one large bruise on the left side. As it was, she settled for scowling.

"Asha, you need to swear to me on your _life_ that every word you say is true."

"Jesus, Max! What are you going to do? Kill me if I don't answer your questions?"

"That's pretty much what I meant, yeah." Asha looked away. She was more angry than scared, and that wasn't going to give Max the leverage she needed to crack her prisoner. She needed to scare Asha more. "Right now, all my friend Joshua knows is that you're part of the same cult that framed him for an innocent girl's murder, and in his mind that makes you just as guilty as Ames White."

"Who--?"

"I'm not done talking yet!" Max cut her off. "Joshua wants revenge. And unless you start talking, he's going to start with _you_."

"Fine." Asha's eyes were narrowed slits. "I don't know Ames White. I've never heard of him."

"Why not?"

"We work in different areas? I only know a handful of Familiars in Seattle. There's a whole heiarchy. Some people are soldiers, others are interrogators, I don't know..."

"What's your area?"

Another glare. "Stirring up trouble."

"So the S1W..."

"It doesn't mean I don't believe in the cause, Max. It just...kills two birds with one stone. I get to make a difference in society and the authorities are spread too thin to bother with the Conclave."

"Why make a difference in a society you're going to kill off anyway?"

"What?" Asha sounded outraged again.

"Don't lie to me, Asha," Max warned.

"You want to talk about lies, Max?" Asha screamed, straining against the ropes tying her to her chair. "What about Logan and his stupid Eyes Only thing? What about Alec and his stupid lines? What about you keeping you are a secret from your friends and putting them in danger?"

Max leaned forward. "I'm not the one tied to a chair in hostile territory, so it doesn't matter if I lie."

Asha slumped down further, and tears welled up in her eyes. Max was breaking her. "I swear to God I don't' know what you're talking about," she gritted out, voice tight with the effort it was taking her not to cry.

"Tell me what you do know, then."

* * *

Actually, the Conclave had some fascinating reading material, once one learned ancient Mesopotamian. Logan was compensating a scholar friend fifteen dollars a page to translate the stolen tome. It was a captivating mixture of religion (his friend Marc made sure to note that much of the vocabulary used held a spiritual connotation), anthropology, and science. If one wanted to, one could spend an entire lifetime studying these intricacies and layered meanings. 

Logan didn't have that long.

For that matter, the world didn't have that long if the prophecy written on Max's skin by Sandeman was any indication. As it was, Logan took a plethora of jumbled notes, analyzing the text from every conceivable angle. He wished desperately that he could get inside the mind of a Familiar. It would make this process go so much faster.

One thing was becoming clear, however. The Conclave believed itself to be composed of only people with superior genetics. They were at once rudimentary and sophisticated in their logic, a cross between Hitler's ideals and Manticore gene therapy. The idea of building a superior race had sprung from the very cradle of civilization and traveled to every major human empire until it could be written down and passed on in this manner.

Logan noted the common imagery used in the texts: snakes, women, stars. In fact, the entire religious aspect of the Conclave's belief system seemed to be derived from—and driven by—star charts. Out of curiosity, Logan hacked into the NASA database to see when an early passage of this book could have been written, assuming the description of a night sky was accurate. 5027 BC seemed like a long time ago. The book in his hands connected two people separated by over seven thousand years of history. Logan decided to be extra careful not to rip any pages.

_"Why women?"_ was his next thought. In almost every major civilization, women were second-class citizens, or at least second thoughts. Everything Logan knew about the Conclave indicated that women were held in no special regard. Tradition held that the mother of a Familiar was killed after giving birth to the chosen child. Yet the image of the revered feminine was used ad nausium in this text.

"Why is that?"

"Well I was hoping you could tell me," Logan told his good friend—and the smartest person he knew—over the video phone.

Sebastian bobbed his head from side to side, activating the machine that spoke for him. Genius or no, his mind was trapped in a cripple's body. "It's so obvious," his robotic voice sounded amused, if it was possible for a computer to have a sense of humor. "Why shouldn't women be glorified?"

"Because...they're weaker? Less aggressive?" Logan was mentally exhausted at this point and wasn't up to playing academic trivia games.

"Because she is responsible for the Original Sin."

Epiphanies really are like lightning bolts, and this one surged through Logan electrifying his nerves and refreshing his mind. "Of course! Eve and the snake and the apple of Knowledge!" He began looking through his notes again. "It fits perfectly!"

"Glad to help. Now if you'll excuse me, _normal_ people sleep at this hour."


	21. Plummeting

Without meaning to, or maybe he did mean to and didn't want to admit it, Alec knocked on Eve's door. He could hear her approach the door from the other side and knew she saw him through the peephole. 

"Eve."

"What are you doing here?"

"I need a place to crash."

"Now's not a good time."

Alarms were ringing in Alec's head. He could tell by her tone that something was wrong. Bless her for being an open book. "Is it something I did?" he asked. He knew it would provoke her to answer. While she stammered about circumstances and his angelic benevolence for protecting her, Alec scribbled a note on a piece of paper and slid it through the crack between the door and jamb. _Unlock the chain_. Aloud, he replied that he would see her later. He heard the faint sound of chanking metal. It was the work of a few seconds to carefully unlock the deadbolt, and a minute's work to kayo the bruiser in Eve's apartment.

"Alec!" Eve threw herself into her rescuer's arms, trembling violently.

"What's going on?" he asked as he sat her down on a chair.

"Oh, you know, your typical marriage proposal," she said with a weak laugh. Alec looked up from binding the unfortunate thug's hands, and Eve waved her ring at him. Her chin began quivering again, and she pulled the ring off. "Fuck!" She rested her head on her hands.

When Alec came back from disposing of the thug in a supply closet, Eve had pulled herself together enough to raid the refrigerator.

"Beer?" she offered. Alec took it silently and watched while she gulped down her own. "What?" she asked crossly, fed up with Alec's analyzing stare.

"Did he hurt you?"

Eve tucked her hair behind her ear, revealing a nasty red welt on her cheekbone.

All the X-5s had been cross-trained with first aid knowledge, and his fingers gently probed the left side of Eve's face. "Nothing seems broken. What was that all about?"

Haltingly, Eve filled him in on Freddy Pratt and his _unique_ way of sweeping a girl off her feet.

"Alec!" she called after him as he headed for the door angrily. "Please don't. He's not worth it."

"No, but you are," he said gruffly. "It's not right."

"Please don't leave me," she begged. Alec hesitated. "Please"

* * *

The morning came too soon for Logan, who had only managed to catch a few troubled hours of sleep. He decided that he had learned as much as he could by himself. It was time to tell Max what he found out and hope that she knew what it meant.

When Logan walked into the control station of Terminal City, Max was feeling pretty good. Ever since her...ever since Alec...ever since _last night_ she'd been feeling relaxed and in control. Relieved. As much as she hated to admit it, Original Cindy had been right about the benefits of one night stands. Even when she saw Logan, her spirits weren't dampened. He looked adorable in all his grim seriousness.

"Max," Logan greeted her, surprised by the warmth he saw in her eyes. Just yesterday she seemed like she wanted to kill him. Now he could almost believe she loved him back. "I've been doing some reading." God, he wished he could elicit that smile from her all the time. But it was probably better he couldn't or he'd be in some serious, virus-induced trouble.

He was in the middle of explaining what he knew when Alec waltzed into the room. Almost immediately, Joshua began growling.

"Hey, Big Fella," Alec spread his arms amiably. "I thought we were over this."

Max looked alarmed, now, as Joshua got closer to Alec. The latter's face was losing its jovialness, and it looked like this fight would actually come to a head. "Back down, Josh," Alec warned.

"Joshua?" Max wanted to know what was going on. What had Alec done to Joshua now? Her appeal had no effect, however, and the two transgenics stood less than a foot apart. Joshua grabbed Alec suddenly by his leather jacket and lifted him into the air so that his neck was at the level of Joshua's canines. Max started forward the same time that Mole and Luke did to break up the fight, but by the time any of them were close enough, Joshua had dropped Alec and was busy smelling his clothes.

"What did you do to him, Alec?" Max asked as she pulled him to his feet and away from Joshua.

Alec looked like his head would explode. "What did _I_ do? Nothing you didn't do!" He was cut off from further yelling by Joshua.

"Father. Or half-Father." He was smiling broadly.

"What?"

"Alec smells like Father."

"How is that possible, Josh?" Logan asked.

"When Max stays at Logan's, she smells like Logan. Alec stayed with Father."

"No, I didn't." Alec brushed himself off, still utterly pissed at every last person in the room. Joshua insisted until Max finally asked where he had passed the night.

"I crashed at Eve's, thank you." It was Logan's turn to redden with anger. He lunged forward, but was stopped by Mole.

"Josh, he can't smell like Sandeman," Max said gently.

"Half-Father. Like," he growled instinctively, "White. Half-Father."

"Are you suggesting that my cousin's dad was Sandeman? That's impossible."

"The nose knows."

"She doesn't know her dad," Alec pointed out.

Max looked at Logan. His face was dark, and he obviously did not believe that a fugitive Sandeman had found time to woo his aunt. "Logan," she asked him gently. "Can you call your aunt?"

"Max, we're talking about smelling DNA here," he pointed out.

"It's the closest thing we have to a lead. Sandeman is the key to everything."

"Okay."


	22. Hope Springs Eternal

"Alec!" Eve greeted him warmly and let him into the apartment. She sported a rather pronounced bruise on her face from the last night's events. He walked in dumbly, jaw set. "Lord," she sighed, sitting on her chair, "what is it now?" 

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

"Cut the crap." Her tone was as clipped as his was tense. He looked up in surprise. "No," she shrugged. "I have no idea who you are because you and my cousin have decided to keep something major secret from me. I've known you two days, during which time you hit on me, pissed me off, and rescued me. I'm very thankful, but I don't trust your inconsistency." She waited for his rebuttal. "Well?"

Alec shrugged now. "Well, you'll have to trust me." He threw her a hood. "Put this on. We're going for a ride."

Eve looked scared as she realized that Alec wasn't simply being dramatic about trust. "What's going on?"

"_What's going on_? A secret cult of superhumans wants to take over the world, and one of the cultists was also a geneticist who designed me and hundreds of other soldiers in test tubes for a secret government agency, and he just might be your father. Put the hood on, Eve." He wasn't supposed to tell her any of that, but he didn't feel like lying to her today.

Eve tossed the black cloth back to him. "No! This is ridiculous! You're not making any sense! If my father were any of those things, do you think he would have left my mother and me?"

Alec approached her, cornering her in her seat. "Yes. It's complicated, Eve." He was about to add "trust me," but realized those words wouldn't help much. Their faces were so close he could feel her breath on his cheek. He saw her eyes drop to his mouth and back to his eyes again. It was an invitation, which he accepted quickly with ardor. He'd wanted to since he met her at Crash, and especially last night when he watched her fitful dreaming. He would have to ask her later about her own inconsistency of character, but first...

His left hand found the bundle of nerves under her jaw. He pressed hard and swiftly, causing her to instantly pass out in his arms.

That was probably the last kiss he'd get from her.

* * *

"Well do you know how to get in touch with him? It's really important, Aunt Jessie." Logan was stunned to find out that his aunt's one-time lover more or less matched a description Max had tortured out of Lydecker. "Yes I'm sure. Yes, please do. Thank you. I love you, too, Aunt Jessie. G'bye."

Logan took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Life could not get any weirder.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned, swallowing a yelp.

"Luke." He should be used to transgenics by now, shouldn't he? He donned his glasses again.

"Hey Logan." Luke wore a goofy grin on his face, as usual. "Will you come with me?"

Logan was up and following Luke before he thought to ask, "Where to?"

"To the labs. Dix and I have been setting up some equipment. You know, making ourselves at home." The guy sounded really excited.

"What kind of equipment?"

Luke never answered his question because they arrived at the abandoned laboratory. Joshua was there, too, beaming proudly.

"Dix and I were thinking about this virus thing, trying to figure out how to beat it, right?"

"Only, it keeps mutating, so there's no way to really get rid of it permanently," Dix continued.

"And?" Logan's throat was suddenly painfully dry.

"So we got to thinking outside the box," Luke continued. "We can't get rid of the virus, and we can't change your DNA, but what if we made YOU immune to the virus, like Max is?"

"How?" This time his one syllable question came out as a whisper. He felt slightly dizzy. They were talking about a cure. His heart rate accelerated. For him and Max...

"Well if we can get your immune system to produce antibodies to the virus _structure_ then it shouldn't matter how it mutates, because your antibodies will mutate with it. Like how rats are immune to the real hantavirus."

"I...I don't understand." His mind was racing with the idea that he could finally take her in his arms...

"Max and Logan. Getting busy." Joshua was beside himself with happiness for his friends.

"I think what Joshua is trying to say is that your last transgenic blood transfusion made you a good deal...healthier. If we can make you immune to the Hanta virus, then we should be able to make you immune to Max."

"Well," Dix looked at Luke, "Not _to_ Max per se, but to her virus. In theory."

"In theory," Luke agreed.

"Let's do it."


	23. Waiting

"Have any of you seen Logan?" Max asked a group of transgenics in the mess hall. 

"No, boss," one of them, an X-5 named Sheila, answered.

"I saw him talking with Luke a while ago," another answered, blinking first one, then a second, pair of eyelids.

"Thanks."

She walked down the hallway, intent on the science lab, when she ran into Luke. Or rather, he literally ran into her. "Luke, have you seen Logan?"

"Um yeah. Well, no. That is to say..."

"I need to find him," she interrupted kindly. She understood that Luke was a thinker, not a talker. And years at Manticore hadn't really done much for his social skills. It was better if she stuck to facts with him.

"Actually, I don't think he's feeling too well at this point."

"What do you mean?" she asked. She hated the thought of Logan being sick, because usually she was the cause of it.

"A touch of the flu, I suspect."

"How is that possible? The blood transfusions should make him immune to pretty much anything."

"Except this!" Luke shrugged his shoulders and forced out a laugh.

"I should probably check on him. He'll want to be a part of our meeting."

"I don't think that's such a good idea!" Luke practically shouted and grabbed her arm as she brushed past him. "I don't think he should be moved."

"How sick is he?" she asked. The uneasiness she was feeling intensified.

"Um..."

"_Luke_." It was all she could do to keep from slamming him against the wall.

"He's...he's bad, Max," he finally admitted.

"Is he back this way?" she asked as she took off down the hall to the lab. When she threw open the door (startling Dix and Joshua), she found him laid out on a lab bench sweating and twitching in a delirium.

Seeing him there, helpless, brought a wave of emotions, and tears began sliding down her cheeks. It was always this same thought in her head when either she or Logan were looking death in the eye: _It wasn't enough time_! Too much was left unsaid and undone between them.

She heard Luke enter behind her. "What's wrong with him?" she asked softly.

Luke looked at Dix, who stepped forward. "At this point, we're not sure," he said gently. Before they had inoculated Logan with an altered strain of the hantavirus, he had made all of them promise not to tell Max anything.

"If it doesn't work...I don't know if she can handle it. She's got enough on her mind right now." He had smiled, then, cocky and sure. "Besides, it _is_ going to work, so there'll be nothing to tell her!"

"It might be the radiation fall-out, or stress, or anything," Dix added. He watched as Luke deftly swiped a couple of strands of Max's hair for later testing. If Logan pulled through...no, _when_ Logan pulled through, they would need to see if the cure worked.

Max nodded, then scanned the lab. She found what she was looking for, and once she was confident her hand was protected by a latex glove, she went over to Logan and held his hand. His eyes snapped open but could not focus on her.

"Don't you fry that brain of yours," she warned him in a whisper. "You never know when I'll need saving again."

* * *

The problem with being "the boss" was that you were required to delegate. Max had a particular interest in finding Sandeman, and would have loved to be the one who kicked down his door and asked the first question, but no-one at Terminal City was dumb enough to think for a second that this mission was safe. What was that saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

Shame on me. Since Max was seen as the mind and heart behind Terminal City, she would not be going. Instead, Alec the Habitual Screw-up would be accompanying Eve to Sandeman's under the pretense that she had hired a private detective (Alec) to find her father. If it was a trap, Eve didn't know anything that would endanger her, and Alec...well Alec was trained for this, supposedly. Had Alec ever successfully completed a mission in his life? Max pondered that while she waited. And waited.

And waited.

Waited for Logan to die, waited for Alec to call...she hated waiting.

Finally her cell phone rang.

"Go for Max."

"Maxie, we're here. Nothing seems out of place."

"Well if it seemed out of place, it'd be a pretty bad trap, wouldn't it?" Max hear Eve say. Briefly she wondered what had happened to make Logan's cousin so irritable toward Alec. Besides her problems with the mobster and the deal with her Father, that is. No, Max sensed Alec's fingerprints all over this one.

"We're going in," he told her, ignoring Eve's biting comment.

"Stay alert and be careful," Max replied emphatically, the butterflies in her stomach growing.

Waiting sucked.

"Hey, it's me," Alec replied, and Max could see his smirk in her mind's eye as she flipped the phone shut. She went back to waiting.


	24. Answers

Max had tried to prepare herself for what was to come when Alec called her back and told her they'd found him. With Alec driving, the trip from Vancouver to Seattle only took about an hour and a half, during which time she tried to decide what she'd say, what secret she wanted to know first. She tried to imagine what he looked like based on the fuzzy memories she had of him. 

All that planning went out the window when he came through the door.

"You needn't have blindfolded me," he said, his rich voice full of dignity and aplomb. "I used to work here, you know." Eve clung to the old man's elbow as if she were afraid he would disappear from her life again. "May I sit down?" he asked graciously. "I'm an old man, and the trip was very long." He pulled a chair out from the table and sank down on it, hanging his cane on its back.

Max _had_ decided to get down to business, dissecting the Conclave's intentions once and for all. Instead she asked him why he made them.

"Us?" he asked.

"Manticore."

"Well I thought that should have been obvious by now," he raised his eyebrows. "Did you not get my message?"

"Which one?" Max was getting frustrated quickly. She had hoped...she had expected, that Sandeman would recognize her immediately and hold her like he used to when she was a child.

"Well, now. That's a problem, my dear," he chuckled. Max wondered if she remembered his hair being that white, if his face had been so wrinkled. She was sure his blue eyes weren't so dead and haunted.

"How long do we have before the Conclave starts Armageddon?" she tried again.

"I gave up that life years ago," he slouched back, aging ten years as he answered. "I'm sure I don't know the answer to that."

"Well you're going to have to," she said. "Let's go. Eve, you're staying."

"She has as much right to know as any of my children!" Sandeman insisted as he grabbed his cane and stood up.

"Your children?" Eve asked, wide-eyed. She looked at Alec, horrified that she might have kissed her brother.

"It's an expression," Alec said.

"No, it's not," Sandeman corrected him. "It's just not a literal turn of phrase. You are the world's children as much as my own. Descendants of societies past and present. Now, where to?"

"Your old digs," she told him as she pulled up the man-hole covering like it weighed nothing.

The walk through the sewers was quiet, and Max tried to get herself under control. Already she felt herself getting jealous of Eve, Alec, and Joshua, and trying too hard to impress this feeble old man. She never realized before that she wanted a father so much. If Logan were here, he'd tell her that Sandeman was only human and that there would be plenty of time after she took out the Conclave to catch up with him and build that relationship. But Logan was still feverish and couldn't talk, much less think. She never felt more alone.

Finally, they arrived at Sandeman's old house, where Joshua had lived for a brief time, and Logan, too. Max wondered what Sandeman would think of Logan. She thought he might be impressed with Logan's exceptional mind, kind heart, and sense of style and refinement.

The minute they opened the door, Joshua grabbed Sandeman in a hug. "Father."

"Joshua?" Sandeman was starting to sound human. "Joshua, let me look at you, my boy!" Sandeman pulled away from Joshua's embrace and inspected him proudly. "You look great!" he decided, and hugged the tall transgenic again.

Max had never seen her Big Fella so happy, and that made her despise him.

Yep, sibling rivalry was a bitch.

* * *

It was morning before Sandeman and his offspring got around to talking about the end of the world.

"I tried to leave you hints everywhere, angel. You didn't get them?"

"I got them. I just didn't have my Sandeman decoder ring. I left it at Manticore when I escaped," Max replied.

"Don't sass me," Sandeman warned. Max smiled. It felt good to hear that. "Did you or did you not get the runes?" She did. "It wasn't a literal warning," he told her. "Well it was and it wasn't. When the Hour approaches, all the world will be forced to undergo the Rite. I've made you immune. In your veins flows the salvation for the world."

"The Hour? The Rite?"

Sandeman sighed. "You haven't even figured out that much for yourself? I figured you'd have all the pieces together before you came for me. I'm a little disappointed. Granted, I didn't leave you with many resources, but I figured you would find someone smart enough to find and decipher the Old Texts."

"I did. He did. He's...sick."

"Logan?" Eve looked panicked again. That girl had been on an emotional rollercoaster all night. Max was surprised she was even still awake, given how exhausting the last twelve hours had been and everything she'd been through. All the transgenics she'd met. At least she was too tired to be mad at Alec right now.

"What happened to Logan?" Alec asked, looking at Joshua, who seemed slightly guilty of something.

"Luke and Dix said that the radiation was getting to him," Max said, though she wasn't sure she believed that story. But she couldn't deal with that line of thought right now, so she just chose to accept it.

"Well, what did _Logan_ find out?" Sandeman asked, steering the conversation back on target.

"He said that the cult might be as old as time itself and was linked somehow to the Garden of Eden."

Sandeman whistled. "Very good. And?"

"And that's as far as we got before an emergency stopped us." Max looked pointedly at Alec, who spread his arms innocently.

"He's absolutely on the right track. Not bad for a Normal. Well, at least I assume he's a Normal. Everything you need to know is right there. Verification of its importance: Eve." He nodded to his biological daughter. "I thought that one was a bit obvious. And how did the Biblical Eve get everyone kicked out of Eden?"

"Apple," Joshua said.

"Close."

"Snake."

Sandeman threw his arms up in the air. "Brilliant! My boy is brilliant."

"Snake?" Max asked, and the big picture opened up for her. "The snakes in the Rite of passage every member of the Conclave goes through. I'm immune to the venom. Anyone unworthy of the brotherhood dies during that ceremony."

"Yep! There it is: 30 years of planning explained in less than a minute." Sandeman seemed pleased with himself and proud of his children. Max suddenly thought that he must not get the opportunity to beam like a proud father often.

"But when is the Hour? Logan mentioned star charts..."

"The Hour was supposed to be in June of 2009."

"The day of the Pulse," Alec mused. "Your doing?" Sandeman inclined his head in a sort of bow.

"I had to delay them until my champion," he indicated Max, "was ready." His tone turned dark. "To answer your question, the meteor showers are almost at an end. The Hour draws near."

* * *

"We have a big problem," White told the Elders.

"They got to his daughter first? How did that happen?" a woman with a pixie face and short hair asked him.

"Forget the daughter! The transgenic filth have the Old Texts?" another one, a man, yelled.

"At this point, I think we should assume the worse," White said. A faint trace of a smile sat on his face; he was enjoying being right about 452 and her band of misfits. His faith still lay with the Conclave, however; he knew that no matter what, they would survive this setback. Soon there would be no more setbacks. "Are we ready to carry out the Rite?"

"Are you suggesting we proceed with the Hour ahead of schedule?" the woman asked, appalled.

"I hate to say it, but it makes sense," the male Elder said. "We will discuss it with the Council. Ames, find your father. Kill him and anyone who gets in the way. He's become far too much of a threat to be left alive."

"It would be my pleasure," White said. "Fe'nos tol." He walked to his car, started the engine, and began to drive. He had no destination in mind, and was not paying attention to his surroundings. So it had come to this: he was required to kill his own father. Finally, he would not have to live with the knowledge that his father had disgraced his family line by producing the very filth that threatened the Rite. However...

Sandeman was still his father. Just as he could not bear to terminate his weakling brother CJ, he was finding it difficult to think of having to destroy his father. Somehow he had assumed that once the Rite was underway, CJ would either survive or be found unworthy a second time, a loss White could tolerate. There was honor in that fate, after all. And with the rest of the pathetic human race gone, his father would have no-one to save. White had been hoping that his family might be made whole again. Ray would be found in short order once the bombs went off, and most of the population died. Three generations of men would emerge from the smoke victorious.

Well, White would settle for two generations if his father brought it to that. Sacrifices must be made so that the deserving, the superior could survive in peace. Yes, there was honor in that, too: taking a life so others could live in a paradise the likes of which the world had not seen since its creation.

Sandeman and 452.

It would indeed be a pleasure to terminate them both.


	25. Bait and Switch

Max's eyes opened slowly, heavily, sliding shut even as she pulled herself to sitting. She rested there a minute before attempting to stand. Sandeman had all but drained her veins dry, preparing for the Hour. He was busy in his old lab trying to prepare antidotes just in case Max failed. 

_"How do we stop them?" Max had asked at an earlier meeting. It was just the leaders of TC: Max, Alec, Joshua, Sandeman, Mole, Luke and Dix. They all contributed something unique: wisdom, kindness, clarity, knowledge, ruthlessness. What Max couldn't see and wouldn't have believed even if they told her was that somehow she possessed all these qualities. She could have been her own council and come to the same conclusions._

_"Another pulse?" Alec suggested. "It worked the last time..."_

_"We don't have the resources." Sandeman shook his head. "Besides, America would never recover from a second blast. It's barely recovered from the first one!"_

_"Why not just take out the leaders?" Mole had asked from around his cigar. "It worked in the Middle East. It's what we're trained to do."_

_"We don't assassinate people," Max had said heatedly._

_"Yeah, well maybe we should, Max," Alec said quietly. Joshua looked at the X-5, then lowered his eyes in agreement. Max looked around the table and saw what was in the others' eyes: sympathy for her ideals...and agreement. And she realized that they were right. It had come to this._

_"Boss, why don't you let me handle this one?" Mole had asked. "You're too...human to do this."_

Max began walking toward Sandeman's room in slow, shuffling steps. Something about Mole reminded her of Zack. Oh, Zack! He would have taken Mole and Alec and Max that very night, and they would have put an end to this. But Zack was on a farm somewhere far away from all these problems, leaving Max to shoulder the responsibility. Sandeman had agreed with her on that point: This was her burden to bear.

"Angel, what are you doing out of bed?" He steered her toward a chair. "You're not strong enough yet."

"Logan."

"You love him, don't you?" Max nodded, unable to put any words behind her sentiment. Sandeman sighed. "Joshua told me about the virus."

"Is there anything you can do?"

"Tell you what, Angel. You come out of this alive and in one piece, and I'll try to fix it. Okay?" Max nodded again.

"Thanks." Sandeman sent her back to bed.

Max didn't feel like sleeping. She felt like going for a walk. She made it down the street before Ames White made his move, overpowering her easily, and stuffing her into his car.

* * *

"452." 

"White." Max didn't have to open her eyes to know that voice, or the fear that came with it. She had lived in fear of Manticore most her life, but it was fear of losing her freedom, her choice. With White, she could lose far more than that. "Your dad says hi."

She was expecting the blow that followed; it didn't hurt.

"So he is with you," White said. "I guess that makes you my new best friend."

His face was so inside her personal bubble. "Lydecker was right. Years of breeding and you are the ugliest humans alive!"

White grabbed her throat just tightly enough that she could not talk. It was standard procedure to banter back and forth, all the while hoping to make the other person angry enough to slip information. They were both professionals, though. They could go for hours without actually making each other mad. There would be no slips with them. He let go of her.

"Damn thoughtful gift, that Lydecker," she said stubbornly.

"Much like you delivering yourself to me, 452. One good turn deserves another. Where's Sandeman?"

"You think I'm going to give up my father?" she asked, deliberate in her wording. "I'm not the savior, it turns out. It's him. Good thing me and mine found him first so that he could save the world."

"That old man," White growled, back to invading her personal space, "won't be saving anyone, 452. I'm calling your bluff. Don't presume you know my own flesh and blood better than I do. He _raised_ me."

"He _made_ me."

That was enough to make White mad. One punch, a wildly aimed backhand, and Max was launched into unconsciousness.

* * *

"We still need Sandeman, Ames," a woman's voice was saying. "We can't take the chance that she was telling the truth." 

"Her kind spews nothing but lies," Ames said, his normal composure gone. Max inwardly congratulated herself on causing his vexation. "The Hour is here. We have won."

"We will let our people probe her," a male replied calmly. "They will get to the bottom of this. It is what they are trained to do."

"In the meantime, make sure Sandeman is not a problem." It was the woman speaking again. This sounded final. Max was careful to keep her breathing shallow and regular, her eyes unmoving under their lids. At least until White was gone. She was lucky she had been designed to withstand such violence, or else White would have shattered the left side of her face. And not to be vain or anything, but it was a nice face! She felt someone lift her, and gave into the pull of gravity on her head and arms. _Careful with that hand, buster!_ she yelled silently at whoever was handling her. Did he have sweaty palms or something?

She was lowered again, and she felt a rush of air in her face before she heard a thump. The air was stale, now, and smelled like polyester. She was in the trunk of someone's car, headed toward a destination where some people would try to probe her for information. This was too easy.

Her hands were bound in front of her, so there was not enough room to maneuver them to feel the back of her neck, where a tracking chip had been implanted. Mole, Joshua, Sandeman, and Alec were following her progress, waiting for her to be delivered to "the hive," as they referred to the head quarters of the Conclave. Take out the elders—cut off the head of the snake—and the rest would fall.

It only seemed appropriate to use a snake metaphor, since the Conclave loved them so, and a woman to bring them to their knees.


	26. Insubordination

"Alec." Eve approached him, seeing he was alone at the control center. 

"What are you doing in here?" he asked. "You were supposed to stay put in your room."

"I wanted to see what was going on," she told him. _I wanted to make sure you're alright_, her body language said. After Max had explained everything to Eve, she had stopped being mad at Alec for kidnapping her. Now she was even concerned.

"I'll be fine. I was made for this." Eve ducked her head, embarrassed. "You don't want to know what's going on here," he said. The computer behind him beeped, drawing his attention. The blip on the screen had stopped moving around Seattle. Max had arrived.

"That's where Freddy lives," Eve said, having come up beside Alec to look at the monitor.

"Freddy Pratt?" Asha asked from the doorway.

"Can no-one follow orders?" Alec asked rhetorically.

"You know him?" Eve asked. She could feel a certain tension radiate from this blonde woman, though she also sensed that not all of it was directed at her, but that she and Alec had unfinished business.

"He's my liaison in Seattle," she told Alec.

"Your..."

"He's a member of the Conclave, a pretty high-ranking one."

Alec looked at Eve.

"He knew," Eve breathed. "If you hadn't been there that night...I would have compromised everything."

"What's going on?" Asha asked, propping an elbow on her hip. Alec thought the gesture was to accent the curves Eve did not have. Did Asha still want him after all that had happened? Hot damn! Rule #1 in Alec's Book of Seducing Women: Never let them meet.

"Her dad used to be a member of the Conclave until he tried to stop their plan for mass genocide by genetically engineering, well, us," Alec gestured around him as Asha approached the computer. "That makes her a great bargaining chip."

"Gee thanks," Eve muttered.

"I want to help," Asha said.

"I do, too," Lydecker echoed from the doorway.

"Jesus, did Max open the brig doors before she left?"

"Yes," Asha and Lydecker said together.

"This is my fight, 494, as much as it's yours."

"Fine, whatever," he agreed. "Eve, would you go find Mole, Joshua, and Sandeman?" He really just wanted a chance to talk to Asha and Lydecker alone, and he knew Eve probably saw right through his scheme. "It's time to move out."

* * *

It was a nice house, Max decided. It was large, well-maintained, dripping of wealth. She felt bad for bleeding on the Oriental carpet. She could have gotten good money for that back in the day. Maybe she still would once she kicked everyone's ass. 

She fell down again as a non-pain-feeling cult-freak socked her in the gut. Maybe Logan would like this place. It didn't quite have his subtle, tasteful style, but it was nice enough for Eyes Only, and hey, she wouldn't mind crashing here every once in a while. She wondered how nice the kitchen was. She hadn't had a Cale special in ages.

These guys might as well use knives on her. As it was, it felt like they were sticking dull, white-hot blades into her right shoulder as one of them twisted it out of socket. It dangled painfully by her side, and she really wished the rest of her comrades would hurry the hell up before these goons killed her. Leave it to Alec to screw things up...

Alec put his hands up as White approached, just seconds after he had asked Eve to rally the troops. White had herded Lydecker and Asha further into the control room with his gun. Alec was tactically in the completely wrong place to do anything about it, and White knew it.

"Good to see you," he said to the X-5.

"Likewise. Can I get you anything?"

"I want Sandeman."

"I meant in terms of beverages."

White leveled his gun at the X-5's chest and took a step forward. "Where. Is. He."

Alec sighed. "He's not here. He's out trying to stop your evil plan for world domination."

"Then I want his daughter."

"We're all his children, really," Alec said in a philosophic tone. White responded by pulling the trigger. Alec flinched and ground his teeth, but did not move, as Lydecker grunted and slid to the ground jerkily. It's hard to stand when one's kneecap has been shattered by a high-velocity piece of metal.

Eve stepped forward, drawing White's attention. "Stop it. I'll come with you."

"No," Asha stepped forward, too, and looked pointedly at Eve. "I can't let you take the fall for me." Asha set her jaw and looked at White, who sneered.

"How sweet."

Eve started forward again, but Alec caught her by one hand. "Now's not the time to play hero," he murmured.

Eve watched helplessly as Asha stepped down toward White in her place.

* * *

The thing about doorways is that they are great strategic positions for controlling a room, but only if someone's got your back. White had attacked by himself, and now all of Terminal City was behind him. The only way he was getting out of the complex alive was if he had Sandeman or Sandeman's daughter as a hostage. He thought he had his half-sister, but he only had Asha. 

White put her in front of him, gun at her heart—no mistakes—and marched her out of the room. As soon as he opened the door, he ran into Joshua's chest. Just like that, he lost control of the situation. There would be no reasoning with this transgenic, who neither feared White, nor feared hurting White's captive.

White pointed his gun at Joshua, point blank, and Asha ducked, ramming into his right arm to send the shot wild, grazing the transgenic's right cheekbone. White didn't get a second shot, because Joshua's brutal attack knocked the gun out of his hands. Alec had blurred over to the fray, getting Asha out of the way of Joshua's rampage and stopping the Big Fella from doing anything rash.

"It's justice, Alec!" Joshua growled.

Ok, Alec couldn't really argue with that logic. White deserved to pay for his crimes. He backed away.

"Joshua, please don't," Sandeman pleaded, hobbling to his two first-borns as quickly as his leg would let him.

"He killed Annie," Joshua said, though he had stopped choking White. "He deserves to die."

"He's my son," Sandeman tried again. "I'm begging you as your father _and_ his, don't."

With frightening force, Joshua pushed White away from him, hurling the man into the air and slamming him against the wall.

"We gotta go," Mole said, cigar already burned down to a nub. "Rescue the boss-lady."


	27. Rest in Peace

Max had learned a few things when she escaped from Manticore. The first was to fight dirty. The second was how to tell people what they wanted to hear so they'd leave her the hell alone. 

"Sandeman ran off," she grunted out. She spit a stream of blood before she continued. "Something about looking for his daughter."

"She's in Seattle, and neither of you can find her?" Freddy asked blandly. A group of Elders sat behind him, watching as she had answers tortured out of her. So this was Freddy Pratt, gangster extraordinaire and official torturer for the Conclave. She had pictured him older, fatter...more Italian. Instead he was about Logan's age, shorter and thin with oily hair and a pockmarked face. Did the Conclave breed _no _good-looking lunatics? What had started as a joke was turning out to be eerily true: The Conclave was butt-ugly.

"Didn't know she was here," Max said. "We were kind of distracted with trying to take you all down." She nodded at her audience, the twenty-some people that stood between her and the fate of the world.

"Break her other arm," Freddy sneered.

That wouldn't do! Time to make a move. "Hate to tell you this," Max said as she jerked her dislocated arm from her captor's grasp, "but this arm ain't broken!" The shoulder settled back in socket smoothly, and although it was sore and stiff, it was functional. She jabbed her fingers into the eyes of the goon holding her left arm, freeing her to fight.

"Give up now, and you'll live," she told Freddy, and the Council lurched to their feet behind him. "This is your only warning."

Glass shards began falling from Freddy's shattered skylight as Ames White was thrown through it. Max was fast enough to avoid most of the glass, though one piece nicked her eyebrow. That would bleed heavily, she knew, blinding her if she didn't cover it soon. Ropes, and transgenics, were fast behind White's body, and the melee began. No-one who did not surrender would walk out alive.

Time seemed to slow down for Max as she looked around her. She could hear Mole yell "Stop!" half-heartedly before he pulled the trigger of his shotgun. The noise was deafening in the confined room, and the Elder running for the door would never get back up. Asha and Sandeman appeared in the doorway, having secured the rest of the house. They only shot if someone tried to escape by them. It was hard to kill your own, even if it meant saving innocent lives. This Max knew personally.

Max felt her heart turn cold at the sight around her. Glassy eyes in contorted faces, blood standing red and stark against the walls and carpet. She looked up to see a waterfall of red push itself out of a woman's chest, and she knew in that instant exactly what that woman was feeling when her heart bled out into her chest, when her thoughts ran wild and disappeared all together, when the darkness claimed her.

She touched her chest where her scar should still be. So many lost because Sandeman left his children behind. So many lost for this moment, when those left would save the world in an epic battle no-one would ever know about. Silent heroes, all of them, and they would be cast back into silence after this battle.

One of Freddy's guys grabbed Max from behind. Her response was automatic: stomp his toes (he screamed in her ear), elbow his ribs (she could feel them crack), twist his arm (she could feel it bend where there was no joint), and drive his nose into his skull with the heel of her hand (she could feel him die). Death was quick, and would have been painless even if the guy could have felt pain.

She turned, and saw Freddy pointing a gun at her. She started toward him, zigzagging so that the shots would not get her. In one swift move, she kicked the gun away. With another, she snapped his neck. She dropped the body and looked around. Behind her, Alec shot an Elder in the head, finishing the job he started with an earlier shot. The battle was over.

She felt like shit.

"Max." Asha was cradling Sandeman, fallen in the doorway.

* * *

Sandeman had had a heart attack. He would never get the chance to tell his children that everything would be ok; that he loved them all. Instead, Max made that announcement to TC and held Eve as sobs wracked her body. Then she left them to their bittersweet celebration, deciding she'd rather be alone. 

White was in a coma from the trauma he suffered at Joshua's hands. His fall through Freddy's window hadn't helped, but it hadn't exactly hurt him, either, vegetable that he was. With Sandeman gone, Max had decreed that White would be left alone to live out his life in peace. Joshua agreed to it, seeing as the odds of him waking up again were slim. Max hoped he never would wake up to see how the world had changed or what he had lost.

Lydecker had always been a survivor. He would limp for the rest of his life, however, and Max hated that _he_, of all people, should survive when others more deserving did not. Nonetheless, she had presented him with Sandeman's cane. It seemed fitting, somehow, that he should have it, despite what a pain in the ass he'd been.

And Logan...

"Max?" Alec interrupted her thoughts. He had followed her from the assembly. Maybe Mole could celebrate the carnage, but Alec had more respect for the enemy than that. Those corpses they left in Sector 4 were Asha's friends, Eve's family, husbands, wives, children that would never go home again.

Max punched a wall. "It's not fair!" she screamed.

"I know," Alec moved forward as if to embrace her, but she stepped back.

"No, you don't know, Alec. I'm alone again. Logan and I can't ever _be _anything. Sandeman's dead, and with him all my answers." She stopped pacing and her eyes filled with hot tears. "He was going to find a cure, Alec."

"He doesn't have to," a voice—Logan's voice?—said from behind her.

Max's eyes burned as she turned slowly around, and she finally let out the breath she was holding only when she was certain that Logan was actually standing there.

"Hey you," she smiled at him. "I thought you were busy dying. Again."

"Something like that," he smiled back, coming closer still. There was a weird glint in his eyes she hadn't seen since he kissed her after Gossamer stole their borrowed time together. It both scared her and thrilled her, then, as it did now. He was inches from her, very inside her personal bubble, and she couldn't seem to care about the spatial violation.

"Luke and Dix found a way," he said, voice low and gruff.

Max felt like Zack's heart would beat right out of her chest. "How long?"

Logan snaked an arm around her back, fingers warm and strong along her spine. "Forever."

Max nodded, settling closer to him. "That might be long enough." She threw her arms around him, inhaling his scent as she kissed him. She was tired of waiting, tired of wanting the perfect moment. She wished she could just pull everything he was into her: his comfort, his mind, his soul. Unfortunately, it had been a long day, and she had lost a lot of blood. Assimilating him into her bones would have to wait.

Logan caught her before her knees could do more than buckle, and swept his arm to catch her knees, settling her into his arms. From there he walked to her room and laid her gently on her bed.

He knelt on the floor; she stubbornly would not let go of his hand.

"I think I found a new place for Eyes Only."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, it's a little bloody right now, but it's nice."

"Not interested."

"Why not?" Max sat up.

"I can set up shop here," he said, eyes locked on hers. "Closer, you know..."

Max smiled sleepily. "I know. Stay with me tonight."

"I will," he whispered back.

She tugged on his arms. "Up here." Logan gently settled himself behind her, curving his body around hers, and looping an arm over her middle to keep her close. All the pain of the last few days—feelings of weakness, despair, fear, guilt, and regret—all of it disappeared and she could only feel the heavy warmth of Logan's chest against her back, his breath on her neck, his protective arm on her stomach. Not only could she feel him seep into her, but she felt like she was just as much being pulled into him. He wanted this connection, this exchange of being, as much as she did. _This _was what made her life worth living. Her sacrifices, the sacrifices of all the people she had known to get her here—alive and human—this moment was what it was all for.

"I'm in love with you Cale," she whispered. She fell asleep smiling, having heard him respond in kind.

End


End file.
